Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has reached pandemic proportions in the world. The current world population of 23 million individuals infected with AIDS is increasing by 3 million annually. Although recently developed multi-drug therapies have begun to achieve dramatic reductions in viral burden and increased survival the high cost of this approach does not preclude the need for a safe cost-effective vaccine for ultimate world-wide control of this disease. Currently, the "prime-boost" vaccination strategy, consisting of primary vaccination with live recombinant virus expressing the gp160 protein followed by a booster vaccination with the recombinant gp160 or its proteolytic product, gp120, has shown promise as a potentially effective vaccine against HIV. This project aims to develop transgenic plant-based technology for cost-effective bioproduction and oral delivery of edible vaccine components based on plant expression of the gene for the highly immunogenic gp160 HIV envelope protein. Specific objectives of Phase I will be 1) to generate plant expression vectors encoding the gp160 cDNA, 2) to transiently express gp160 in tobacco cells in order to forecast the potential of plants to express this gene, and 3) to generate and analyze whole stably transformed tobacco plants expressing gp160. Success in these Phase I feasibility studies would support continuation of Phase II research aimed at developing a tomato-based edible delivery system for vaccination against AIDS. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION Production and oral delivery of a safe cost-effective vaccination against AIDS via edible transgenic plants would address a world-wide market need for alleviating the scourge of this as well as other potentially catastrophic infectious diseases. Success of this research goal, as discussed in this proposal, should attract international interest from a variety private and public agencies and business investment groups and lead to commercialization of the research.